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Beth reached the top of the first flight and halted, listening – just the vibration of the sanders below and still no footfalls. Perhaps he’d already gone. Maybe he was, at that moment, screeching out of the underground car park. Had a man his age really managed to clear these stairs in the time it took her to cross the road from the house?
She padded up the second slowly, the steps cold against the soles of her bare feet. When she reached the double doors leading to the first floor, she ducked to one side and briefly peered through the glass panels into the corridor beyond. No sign of movement. Whitening her knuckles around the knife, she cautiously tugged the door handle with her other hand, and it squealed as she eased it back. If the gunman were still here, he would certainly know somebody else was.
Beth stepped into the pristine and sterile corridor. The air smelt of resin, the floor was covered with large institutional blue carpet tiles and, ahead of her, two doors were locked open.
She inched towards them, slowing at the edge of the daylight spilling through the frame. The sound of the workmen was muffled here, but she could hear traffic through the open window. Beth gulped her fear and walked through them.
She was standing in an expansive, open-plan office space. Bunches of coiled grey wires hung from the ceiling, and ceiling panels were stacked in one corner. She was alone. But Beth had already seen the doors leading to two smaller private offices on the other side of the floor and knew that that was where the gunman had been, or was still, positioned.
She listened again, not breathing, for what felt like minutes. If he had made it down to the car park, there was no way she would catch up with him now. But her instinct told her somebody was in the office. Beth moved forward, brandishing the knife beside her cheek. Would he have the rifle trained on the door when she opened it? She put her fingers on the handle and strained her ear for sounds from the other side. Beth stood to the right of it and quickly yanked down, allowing it to swing inward.
No gunshot. No movement.
She peered slowly around the jamb and choked. The Gunman was seated at the table, his rifle positioned on a stand in front of him and his finger still on the trigger.
From behind him, she could see that his head was bowed. There was a small smudgy hole in his bald scalp. She couldn’t see his face. Most of it lay in fragments over the tabletop.
As she clenched her fingers over her mouth, she thought of the man she’d run into at the bottom of the stairs. The gunman had been wrong. It appeared the French government knew much more about covert resolution than he’d given them credit for.
